Vittorio Amedeo II

Duke of Savoy from 1675, king of Sicily in 1713 and of Sardinia from 1720: he raised the House of Savoy to royal rank, defended Turin in 1706 and was Juvarra's patron.

Image from the Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea publication — From the Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea publication

Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy (Turin, 14 May 1666 – Moncalieri, 31 October 1732) was duke of Savoy from 1675 to 1730, king of Sicily from 1713 and king of Sardinia from 1720: under him the House of Savoy rose from ducal to royal rank.^[1] An ally of Austria in the War of the Spanish Succession, he obtained Sicily and later had to cede it in exchange for Sardinia.^[2] For Turin his name is tied to three things: the resistance during the siege of 1706, the transformation of the city into the capital of a kingdom, and the age of Filippo Juvarra, from Superga to Stupinigi.

The minority and the second Madama Reale

Son of duke Carlo Emanuele II and of Maria Giovanna Battista of Savoy-Nemours, he came to the ducal throne in 1675^[1], when he was not yet of age to rule: the State was governed by his mother, the second “Madama Reale”, as regent during his minority.^[3] The duke's personal rule began in 1684; from then on Vittorio Amedeo followed the urban planning programme depicted in the plates of the Theatrum Statuum regiae celsitudinis Sabaudiae ducis, printed in Amsterdam in 1682.^[4] He married Anne of Orléans, niece of Louis XIV.^[1] His mother, who from the early 1700s had had Palazzo Madama renovated, died in 1724: the inventory drawn up at the time records the quantity of silverware and lavish furniture gathered in the palace.^[5]

Between Versailles and Vienna

In 1690 the duke broke with France and joined the Grand Alliance of the Habsburgs against Louis XIV.^[1] The war came right up to the gates of the capital: the troops of marshal Catinat put the castle of Rivoli to fire and sword in 1690 and again in 1693. According to the tradition preserved by the museum that now occupies it, the young duke watched the residence burn from Turin and vowed to rebuild it more beautiful than before.^[6] In the subsequent War of the Spanish Succession Vittorio Amedeo switched sides again: in 1703 he sided with the Habsburgs.^[1]

The siege of 1706

The choice made in 1703 brought the French army to the gates of Turin. During the siege of 1706 Palazzo Madama served as a storehouse for the royal palace's works of art.^[5] Command of the stronghold was entrusted to the imperial field marshal Wirich von Daun, while the duke left the city to join the troops of Prince Eugene of Savoy ahead of the final operations.^[7] According to tradition, in the summer of 1706 Vittorio Amedeo watched the French lines from the hill of Superga and vowed to erect a church there if the city were saved.^[8] The French defeat beneath the walls of Turin secured his position in Italy.^[1]

Among those who fell in the defence was the miner Pietro Micca. On 26 February 1707 his widow addressed a petition to the duke to obtain a pension, describing her husband as the soldier who,^[7]

«ordered by cavalier Castel Alfieri, colonel of the artillery battalion, or else moved by the generosity of his own spirit to go and set fire to the said mine, notwithstanding the evident danger to his life»
Petition of Pietro Micca's widow to Vittorio Amedeo II, 26 February 1707

Recent historiography plays down the weight of the isolated gesture and places it within the mine warfare conducted by the artillery officers.^[7]

From duke to king: Sicily and Sardinia

The Peace of Utrecht of 1713 gave the dukes of Savoy royal title^[9] and gave Vittorio Amedeo the crown of Sicily.^[1] The possession lasted only briefly: in 1718 the Quadruple Alliance forced him to accept Sardinia in place of Sicily,^[1] and with the treaty of The Hague of 1720 the Savoy became kings of Sardinia.^[10] This gave rise to the state that historians call the Kingdom of Sardinia, with its capital in Turin.

The capital of a king

With the crown, the sovereign launched a process of deep institutional reforms and sought to renew the image of the capital.^[9] The man chosen to do so was Filippo Juvarra: they met in mid-July 1714^[4] and on 15 December of that same year the architect was appointed first royal architect.^[9] Tommaso Manfredi describes their almost daily collaboration as a race against time made of “one's pressing demands and the other's sudden creative solutions”.^[4]

Out of it came the building projects that still define Turin and its surroundings today:

the Basilica di Superga, intended as a votive temple and mausoleum of the dynasty (1715-1731);^[4]
the façade and staircase of Palazzo Madama (1718-1721);^[5]
the new castle of Rivoli, entrusted to Juvarra shortly after the royal title and the court's main building site between 1717 and 1727;^[11]
the completion of the Diana gallery and the church of Sant'Uberto at Venaria Reale;^[4]
the hunting lodge of Stupinigi, begun in 1729 with its St Andrew's cross plan.^[12]

In those same years, in 1720, the University moved into the palace on via Po, still the seat of the university today; the policy of innovation and consolidation begun by the king was carried on by his son Carlo Emanuele III.^[13]

Abdication and imprisonment

Rivoli was the stage for the decisive moments of the reign: there the sovereign announced his accession to the throne and, in 1730, his abdication.^[6] He left the crown to his son Carlo Emanuele III, but shortly afterwards tried to take it back; in 1731 his son had him arrested and kept him confined until the end.^[1] His imprisonment, between 1731 and 1732, halted the building works at Rivoli, which remained unfinished: the new king directed resources elsewhere, favouring Stupinigi.^[11] The great palace Juvarra had dreamed of can be imagined in full only thanks to Ugliengo's wooden model and the canvases of the era's view painters.^[6] Vittorio Amedeo died at Moncalieri on 31 October 1732.^[1]

The tomb at Superga

The basilica promised in 1706 had been inaugurated on 1 November 1731, twenty-five years after the vow, and dedicated to the Virgin.^[8] The king who had commissioned it was buried there in 1732.^[14] Superga became the burial place of the dynasty, where most of the House of Savoy rests.^[15] The royal crypt was arranged from 1774 onward, under Vittorio Amedeo III, by Francesco Martinez;^[16] in the crypt lie the tombs of the kings and princes from Vittorio Amedeo II to Carlo Alberto, and the founder's funerary monument, of 1778, stands in a side chapel.^[17]

Pages linking here

Sources

Report a mistake.